Alice in Her Twisted Realm
by insaneschitsoid
Summary: Mother, why do I have such a dream? So many wonders..." "GET HER OUT OF MY SIGHT!" "Mother? Mother, what's wro- NO! Why are you doing this! Mother!" "NO CHILD OF MINE IS GOING TO BE INSANE!" ... "Mother... mother... it hurts, mother... die, mother."
1. Chapter 1

She saw the white, the never ending white, as if her dream had ended and become a nightmare. But she knew she would not wake, not for some time at least.

Not with all the sedatives she'd watched them give her.

Or, perhaps...

Perhaps she was becoming imune to them?

She wasn't surprised. She'd been here since she'd first told of her dreams, many years ago... rather, of her dream. She only ever had one, of course, the very same each time her eyes closed and her brain relaxed. She'd never much liked waking, to tell the truth, but since that day, the day she was brought here and first put on sedatives, all she would remember of her dream once she awoke, against her will, mind you, would be her own thoughts:

What is ... late for?

What do you mean? I am Alice!

I'm not stupid, I'm quite clever!

How can a ... grin? I didn't know ... could grin.

But I don't want ...! I want to find ... and ...!

Sir..., what's happened, are you alright?!

Don't worry, your ..., I will ..., you can count on me!

I rather like my ... if you don't mind, so my answer is yes, please help me to ...!

That's about the time she awakens, to stare at the ceiling above her bed at the institution. To wake, set off the monitor near her bed and then be sedated once more and fall... fall...

Do I fall?... yes... yes, I do remember falling at first... but nothing else is stirred to the surface, the memory cursed to lie in my unconsciousness forever so I'll never know...

All because of a dream I told mother when I was six.


	2. Chapter 2

"It's getting harder and harder to keep that girl under, Doctor!"

Alice listened carefully to the panicked Irish woman, looking only at the corner of her little holding cell.

She'd woken only an hour after the sedative had been applied, scaring the institution staff. Why shouldn't they be? The sedative is supposed to last forty eight hours, not one. She idly wondered if one of their causes for concern was that they'd been overdosing her by five already just to get that hour...

Most likely.

Alice hopped off her bed for the third time, taking another long walk around her eight by ten foot room, large enough for the bed and monitor inside, as well as enough so that two nurses or doctors could fit comfortably inside. Her first walk about six hours ago had lasted ten minutes, her body not responding well to twelve years of being strapped to a bed. She'd then taken one an hour later, lasting fifteen minutes. Now here she was, hours later, taking another long, monotonous walk that was going to last longer than an hour and a half, as the last one had lasted.

She listened through the walls as the doctor and nurse argued.

Their efforts were in vain, as she would be leaving tonight. Daddy had come to see her when he was told she'd woken and refused the sedatives, and he'd promised to have her home, by morning if not the night.

So she waited and walked and listened and watched, strengthening her aching unused muscles with walking and waving her arms, raising them up and keeping them there for hours, flexing and curling her fingers and toes so they wouldn't be left alone.

Fingers which were also trained by working through the tight knot on the back of her head that used to be her long, crimped blonde hair. It had once been beautiful and shiny, smooth as satin or maybe even silk.

None of the staff had looked after her well, as it was very plain to see.

She worked her hair as she walked, her muscles not aching in the least even as she had passed the hour and forty five minute mark twenty minutes before. She'd gotten it as straight as it would get without a brush when she finally sat back down after the two hour mark, though, remarkably, she was not yet tired.

Just then the door opened and a man, at least, she figured it was a man, came in in some sort of padded suit. He had handcuffs and ankle shackels.

He told me father was here to pick me up and was waiting for me, and that the institution just wasn't going to take a chance.

Alice agreed and held out her hands and feet, surprising the man in the padded suit. She was braced and walked slowly down the contrastingly dimly lit, grey halls.

Alice would do anything at this moment, just to see her father.

She looked up through her blonde tresses and smiled at her father once they'd reached the room he was waiting in, her wide blue eyes happy, with the undertone of madness the institution had bestowed upon her.

"Are we going home, Daddy?" She asked, her voice clear as a bell as if she hadn't left it unused the last thirteen years. "Am I finally going home?"

The man smiled at her... but he wasn't happy. The smile was instead a grimace. Alice didn't like that, but the smile would not leave her. She realized something then.

"Daddy, how is mother?"

"Mother!" Alice cried joyously, hugging the familiar woman around the waist. It seemed she was just as glad to see Alice, as she hugged right back.

"Alice, oh Alice, my little girl!" The woman cooed, grabbing her shoulders to look at her from arms length. "Oh, how you've grown!"

Alice kept smiling, unable to show the anger she really felt, having forgotten how. She kept her eyes closed, so as not to give herself away so soon. She turned when a loud meow reached her ears.

"Dinah!" She cried again, rushing to her kitten, now cat, who sat on the steps. She picked her up, just as she used to, and cuddled the feline to her chest. "Oh, my dear Dinah, how I've wondered!"

Before she was put in the institution, Dinah didn't like to be held by her. She'd squirm and mewl and scratch, and even hiss, though kitten hisses sound cute instead of threatening. But Dinah only purred, and nuzzled Alice's cheek as Alice nuzzled her.

"Oh, dearest!" Alice's mother cooed, taking her husband's arm. "See, I told you Dinah wasn't vicious! She just missed her Alice, that's all! And you wanted to send her away!"

Alice grit her teeth, still smiling. No, mother, Dinah isn't acting this way because I'm back. Dinah is happy because I've gone mad.

She bid her parents good night, as it had become quite late as they'd traveled home, and locked her door once she'd reached it. She placed Dinah the white bed with the pink canopy, choosing not to lay down as she wasn't tired. She spotted the old rocking chair in the corner her nursemaid, now long gone, fired, had used to put her to sleep when she was just a little thing. She dragged it silently across the light blue carpet and turned it to the window. She removed the fower print cusion and hand croched multi-pastel colored afghan from the back, and chucked them in her closet, which was filled with blue, white, and pink clothes from her childhood; in front of her only window now sat a plain, dark-finished wood rocking chair, something one would imagine to be in a pair, with two old biddies sat upon it.

She smiled and sat down, looking out over the dark empty street in front of her large house. She didn't turn to look at her, but she knew just from the sound that Dinah was grooming herself, probably sat upon her too-soft pillows which were laid at the head of her too-soft bed.

"So, father wanted to send you away, did he?" Alice whispered as quietly as she possibly could, knowing Dinah, and only Dinah, could here her. "Well, we'll be having none of that. From now on, you shall live here, in this room. I shall bring food and water up here every day, and your litter box will have to be snuck up tonight... yes, you will officially be my cat, my Dinah. On a lighter note," She said louder, rocking softly in the chair, watching the street lamps be lit. "I know you've noticed already, but in my time at the institution I've become pleasently mad. I for one find it wonderful, wouldn't you agree?"

Alice heard Dinah mewl from her bed, louder than the soft creaking the chair made. She turned her head to look at her cat, to evaluate how well her Dinah was. She was pleased to find that Dinah looked happy and healthy, as her kitten should. She returned to gazing out the window.

"Dinah, do you know if I will be visiting my Aunt soon?" She asked, rocking again. She slowly increased her pace as she watched a small racoon walk into the middle of the road. "I do so hope I will; I have to go back you know, to that place."

She rocked back and forth, back and forth, her speed growing, the creaking of the chair getting louder. She heard a dog barking outside, but the racoon didn't seem to.

"Yes... I didn't much like my time in the institution; they didn't let me think or anything, and you remember how much I love to ponder." Her voice escilated as well as the chair's creaks as she rocked as fast as she could go; she was almost yelling.

A small white rabbit, wearing a waistcoat, hopped quickly into the road, heading right toward the skinny racoon.

She knocked the chair over and threw open the window, cracking the glass.

"RUN MR. RABBIT!" She yelled, her grin as far spread as it could go, teeth showing and the madness in her eyes glinting off the yellow light of the lamps, which tinged them green for a long moment.

A Cheshire grin.

The rabbit was dead, waistcoat shredded, pocketwatch laying on the ground broken. It took her a moment to realise it was not a rabbit, that it was really a small poodle, that the pocket watch was actually its collar.

That the racoon was staring up at her with green eyes and bloody grin that mirrored her own. She heard pounding at her door and waved goodbye to the Cheshire Cat, who then faded into nothing; but not before it had pulled down the corners of its mouth.

Alice nodded to the empty street and copied the creature; this is what it feels like to frown, then? She wondered, rushing to unlock her door; she caught herself in the vanity, and realized that with her wide, mad blue eyes, she looked panicked instead of unhappy. Undoubtedly what the Cheshire Cat had wanted. She threw open the door into the worried faces of her mother and father.

"Mother, it was awefull, simply dreadfull! Daddy quick, call the pound, I just saw a poodle be killed by a large ugly dog!" 


	3. Chapter 3

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Alice had been told to pack her belongings and secure Dinah, who was only tame for her, in a carrier, as they were moving. It wasn't safe to be in their current setting, so they had put the houe up for sale, with the furniture, and were going to stay with Alice's Aunt.

The wild dog Alice had seen the week before had since been killing many of the other animals around the neighborhood. It had started with the Wilson's poor poodle, Mr. Poofs, which Alice had been unfortunate enough to witness the slaughter of, and had gone on for two more nights, killing unsuspecting pets who had wandered out of the house through either windows or pet doors. After the third night, once four pets had been killed, the neighborhood watch had put up flyers, knocked on doors and shouted to anyone they saw, offering rewards for any information, any sightings, warning the rest of the pet owners to lock or board up their pet doors and their windows in the evening and to make sure their pets were inside at night, so they would be safe. And it had worked; the next night there were no reports of missing pets or any reports of animals being found dead when the sun rose.

But then they'd let their pets out to relieve themselves in the morning and two had been found dead by noon.

The neighborhood watch had received numerous calls, numerous sightings, though none too clear. One thing they'd been able to come up with, though, was that none of the dead animals they'd found had been strays. They'd all belonged to one person or another. They'd also determined that it had either bred or that it was soon going to, as the two pets that had been found had been found at almost the same time at opposite ends of the neighborhood, and they were much too torn up to have been mauled by only one animal, no matter how mad it may have been.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

The rewards more than trippled over the next two days, as more and more pets were found dead at numerous times during the day and a few at night, as the neighborhood watch had started to patrol the streets to try and capture the beast, or beasts.

Then, just yesterday morning, two of the three who had volenteered had been found dead, one by Alice and one by the last remaining watchman, maimed almost beyond recognition with missing chunks and laying in puddles of their own blood, which had been licked up by the animal as well.

That had been the last straw for Alice's parents, and they had sent a telegraph to Alice's Aunt saying their neighborhood was no longer safe and that they would be leaving, as many others had already, and would arrive at her home within the week.

Drip. Drip. Splash. Splash.

Alice was exstatic. She hadn't seen her Aunt, her father's sister, since two days before the institution, and was excited to see her again; she was a bit mad herself, always going on about how she was "forbiddenly engaged a young prince who would soon come and sweep her off her feet," while her husband of twenty years she already had was sleeping around with eighteen and twenty year old harlots, which was public knowledge, as he had been for nineteen years; the reason Alice's Auntie had gone mad, if anyone was willing to tell the truth.

Which only Alice was, as usual.

"Auntie!" She yelled, embracing the frazzled woman infront of her. She waved to her parents and uncle to go on ahead, as she wanted to speak with her Auntie as they walked to the house, and it always took a while to get hr moving; longer still for her to make it up to the house. Alice knew her parents and uncle had no patience for it, and knew they'd gladly leave it to her to get her Auntie to the house; proven when they walked up the small hill without them.

She felt arms slowly wrap around her before they fell back to her Aunt's side, and Alice pulled away to find her Auntie staring dazedly at her; focusing on something other than air for the first time in nineteen years. She started leading her up the hill as well, pleased to match her Auntie's slow pace.

"It's... so... good... to see you... my dear..." Her Aunt said slowly, mad glinting eyes and empty smile never changing. "Had... a nice nap... I suppose...?"

Alice nodded a bit, smiling widely.

"Yes, fairly nice. I had hoped it would have been shorter, though, and wouldn't have lasted twelve years. Am I right in assuming Uncle is still paying to have sex with younger women?" She asked offhandedly, glancing around at her Auntie's garden of white roses; her mother's sister doesn't like white roses, for some reason, and would probably throw a fit of some kind.

"Yes... naps there... are... always too long..." Her Auntie said, slowing down until Alice nudged her to keep walking, so she did. "And... of course... he is... Even raped... one of them... didn't want his money... she said... She's in the cellar, now... poor dear... every hour, on the hour, after afternoon tea... fed on soup and bread... given water and a shot of whiskey to drink by the cook when she wants it... always asks for whiskey, only once a day asks for water..."

Alice's smile widened; she'd forgotten how to be scared, as well as all the other emotions.

Except mad, of course.

"Alice..."

She turned when her name was called, noticing they'd stopped just outside of the house.

"You're grown Alice... he'll get you... he... he will... Alice..." Her Auntie said, her permanent smile becoming a frown. Alice realized she hadn't forgotten how to; it wasn't fair.

Alice laughed loudly, not lady-like at all. Her Auntie's small smile returned.

"I can protect myself, Auntie!" She said, no longer her laughing. "I'm not stupid! I'm Alice!"

Her gaze dimmed as she remembered her dream.

'Who are you?' The blue catapillar asked a second time, sneering down at her from his leaf and blowing blue smoke into her face. It made her... giddy, somehow.

"What do you mean? I'm Alice." She mumbled aloud, lost in her memory. Her Auntie just muttered somthing about her young prince, and started slowly down the path again. Alice absentmindedly turned toward the maze that was in her Auntie's yard.

'You're Alice?' The catapillar asked, uninterested. He blew smoke again, and Alice let forth a giggle; it was the giggle of a young girl. 'Not hardly. You're reasonless giggling tells me that you are only a stupid little girl, lost in a world you don't hardly understand.'

"I'm not stupid!" Alice argued quietly to her memory. "I'm quite clever!"

'And I'm Absolum,' The catapillar said; the smoke was getting thicker, and Alice found it harder to hear him, as well as harder to not giggle. So she gave up, and giggled without reason as her vision spun. 'But you won't find me yelling it to the world. Find me again when you know who you are, little girl. I do not like knowing someone, who I know does not know herself.'

Alice could only giggle as the voice of the blue catapillar faded into nothing. She vaguely heard someone call her name as the world around her spun and she felt grass and dirt under her head. The last thing she saw clearly was blue smoke, pouring out of her mouth.

Hookah, if she was not mistaken.

Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash.

"If you didn't give my baby hookah, you old sow, then how did it end up in her mouth, in her lungs?"

Alice blinked open her eyes at the loud, shrill voice. It continued to shriek loudly, thwarting all of her efforts to return to her forgotten dream... but she'd remembered some of it this time. She remembered that, yes, she did fall... her thoughts had become almost whole...

What is Mr. Rabbit late for?

What do you mean? I'm Alice!

I'm not stupid, I'm quite clever!

How can a cat grin? I didn't think cats could grin.

But I don't want t-! I want to find Ch- and Ha-!

Sir N-, what's happened, are you alright?

Don't worry, your m-, I will sl-, you can count on me!

I rather like my h- if you don't mind, so my answer is yes, please help me to find ...!

Splash. Splash. Splash...

Giggle.

Splash.

She also remembered fully her short confrontation with Absolum the caterpillar... she never did see him again, after that...

"I don't care if the bloody son of God is coming to get you! Tell me why Alice was breathing hookah!"

"Perhaps," A new voice said, quiter and lower, a man's voice. "We should take this down stairs."

Alice heard muffled voices and realized she was on a bed in a dimly lit room, and the voices were coming from the hall. She heard light footsteps getting further away, but only of two people.

"If you would be so kind as to watch Alice, Brother, and tell us when she wakes up? We won't be long, I should hope, but you know how my wife gets when she's angered..." The man's voice said again.

When the other man spoke, Alice didn't like his voice; she recognised them all now. The one that left with the other person was her mother's, and the other person must have been her Auntie, the first male voice outside her door was her father...

"Of course, of course! Don't worry yourself a bit; if you're still down there, then I'll make sure to come down just as soon as she wakes up and let you know!"

And this one was her Uncle's.

"Don't worry, though, the doctor said it had been just a mild dose and there wouldn't be any lasting side effects; remember he said that she probably wouldn't even be addicted because it was her first?"

'Oh, but it wasn't my first, not at all! It was my second, and the first was quite a copius amount.' She thought, listening to her father's footsteps fade away. 'I can even feel myself wanting it already...'

She looked at the door when she heard the knob turn and moved to sit up, but immediately laid back down when she realized she was wearing only her brazier and undergarments. She watched, as still and quiet as a statue, as her Uncle walked in. He looked at her as he shut the door and jolted, obviously not expecting her to be awake. His shock wore off quickly, however, and his face twisted into a lecherous grin as he locked the door. Even in the sparse lighting it was easy to tell that his eyes were full of lust.

"So..." He said, walking towards her bed. He took off his waistcoat and placed it over the edge of the bed, along with his tie. He placed his white gloves on the bedside table, but left his glasses on as he leaned over her. "You're awake, are you, you little druggie?"

Alice felt a spark of rage and twinge of fear and distrust, but could only smile.

Splash. Splash.

Giggle.

Splash. Splash.

"You're a bad girl, little Alice... no," The sick man above her said, looking at where her breasts were under the covers. "No, not so little any more... definately not little."

She felt her eyes get wide along with her smile.

'You're grown Alice... he'll get you... he... he will... Alice...'

Her Auntie had warned her... and now she had no more time to prepare, what little time she would have had before having been wasted sleeping. She'd have to improvise, but found she couldn't speak.

"The drugs they make for cases such as yours," The man went on, noticing her speach trouble but not her face. "All I had to do was read the labels when they weren't looking and stick you with some into your throat... temporary, though, so I'm affraid I'll have to be quick... but I'll be back. Yes, yes, I'll be back..."

Splash.

"Oh," He said suddenly, just as his hand was over the covers to pull them away. "I almost forgot the lubrication; can't have you walking too funny, or they'll think it more than just that strangely colored hookah you mysteriously smoked." He stood from the bed and walked over to the vanity on the opposite wall. He popped open a secret drawer on the side and started rifling through it.

'They'd think right.' She thought. She looked around the room quickly, and then remembered something her father had told her about her Auntie just before she'd gone mad.

'Oh, this? This is one of the letter openers my sister sent me for your mother and I's aniversary. I know, I know, it seems a bit large, more like a butcher knife than anything, but you know your aunt, the bigger the better for her large hands! If I know her, she's got at least one in every bedroom of her new house, like she had when we were kids, in the bedside table. Silly thing always wanted to be ready to open her letters, no matter where she was! Though, mother drew the line at her and father's bedroom...'

Splash.

'I pray this is something she continued to be predictable about!' Alice thought, sitting up to reach over to the table and opening the top drawer.

She looked through it as quietly as she could but pulled back when something knicked her finger; she was suddenly glad the drug he'd slipped her prohibited vocalisation of any kind. She reached carefully back in and pulled out the sharp thing with her now bleeding hand. It wasn't a letter opener; it actually was a butcher knife... blade and handle beautiful silver, accented by the small stream of blood from her hand.

She closed the drawer as he announced his finding of the lube, and ducked back under the covers as he turned around, but only her arms made it. Her brazier was fully visible.

His grin widened.

"So Alice is also naughty, is she? Should have known, being held in that institution for so long, that you'd be craving this."

Though she'd expected him to return to his spot above her, so that she could plunge the blade up into his heart, but he stopped at the foot of the bed, and picked up the covers at her feet as he crawled on the bed with a purple vial in his hand. He was going to come up her body!

"This means I'll have to tease naughty Alice instead... but quickly." He said as he dove under, and Alice quickly pulled her hands out from under the covers so he wouldn't see.

'This sick... sick...' Alice thought, stuggling to place a word to him as he pulled her closed legs apart. She almost vomited when she felt him touch her where she didn't want anyone to. She raised the blade and felt her grin stretch, and her eyes widen like they had when the poodle had been killed by the 'dog.'

She put her okay hand on where his head was and yanked his hair under the covers. He stopped and pulled the covers off of him, frowning angrily, and froze when he saw the knife.

After he saw her Cheshire grin.

A glint of light off the twisted silver handle and the blade was covered in, what Alice considered, the prettiest color she'd ever seen.

Giggle.

"Y-you li-little b-b-bitch!" The man rasped out, clutching his shoulder where she'd stabbed him as he lay on the floor where she'd pushed him.

Alice paid him no mind, bloody knife clutched in her teeth as she tied the small white apron around the waist of her small blue dress. Aparently this had once been her room, as her old clothes from when she was last here were in the closet.

Though, only those clothes, so maybe not.

They were a bit tight; she was nineteen now, and these were children's clothes, afterall. But it seems someone had let them out a bit, as the dress was only slightly uncomfortable and fit her quite well dispite the shortness it was, reaching only the middle of her thigh. The apron was only bigger in that the ties were longer.

She turned from the closet to see her uncle on his feet, struggling to reach the door. She cleared her throat, and found her voice was mysteriously back since she'd swallowed some of the red from the blade. So she grinned, and it only widened when she knew this meant she remembered happiness.

"Now we can't have that, uncle." She said, walking quickly on bare feet. She enjoyed the squelch the small puddle of blood made between her toes.

He turned his head just as she finished and found she was right behind him, knife poised once again.

He didn't even have time to scream properly.

Splash. Splash.

"Alice, stop, put it down! ALICE!"

She pulled the blade from her pathetic mother's chest, both feeling and seeing the blood pour out like a fountain and hit her cheeks, nose and open mouth. She tasted the red liquid as it coated her tongue and her mother's dead body fell limp on the counter. It tasted wonderful; exactly like the 'Drink Me' bottle from the table had in the rabbit hole, she recalled.

"Alice!"

She turned at her father's shout, pointing the blade at him and making him freeze.

"Alice, honey, put the knife-"

"Why were you going to get rid of Dinah?" She asked quietly, interrupting him. "She's my little kittin, Father, I can't believe you would do something so horrible. Why?"

Dinah mewled from her spot on Alice's mother's corpse before returning to her fresh meal. Alice smiled at her antics before turning back to her horrified father.

"A-Alice..." He stuttered, backing up only to trip on an overturned chair and fall back.

Alice felt her grin shrink a little at the edges. If father was on his back, then how would his blood get on her? She kicked the chair aside and bent over, pulling him roughly to his feet and then shoving the blade into his stomach. She quickly pulled it out and rammed it into his chest. She let go and backed away a step so she could twirl, letting the blood coat her evenly, and then watched him fall, mouth wide in a silent horrified scream.

Now that everyone but her aunt was dead, including the help, she listened to the blood as it dripped onto the tiled floor of the kitchen.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

She wheezed, her eyes and the grin on her face widening as she realized what all she'd just done.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Splash.

She started trembling and fell to her knees, dropping the knife. She heard her mother's blood dripping onto the floor. It was a steady, thin stream of drops, now.

Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash.

Then she realized. She stopped trembling and just sat there, turning to stare at the growing puddle of blood. She didn't blink when a bloody, striped cat with large slit green eyes and a grin as wide as her own appeared out of nowhere in front of her. It looked over the kitchen for a moment before disappearing again. She still watched and listened to the blood.

Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash.

"I'm free." She whispered raspedly. Her grin was now impossibly wide, and her eyes felt as though they'd soon pop out of their sockets.

And then she started laughing. She laughed so loud that she didn't hear the doorbell. She didn't hear it stop, either, as she didn't even know it was there.

Splash.

"AHAHAHAHA!"

Splash.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Splash.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Splash.

"Alice, there you are!"

She looked at the white rabbit wearing a waist coat that stood next to her, a small smile on her features as she gazed at the creature through half-lidded eyes.

"Hello Mr. Rabbit." She said, following him out of the kitchen.

When they entered the sitting room Alice looked at the new, scared looking addition who sat next to her Auntie.

"This," The White Rabbit said, motioning to the brunette haired girl. "Is Sahra Whiting, my neice. She was raped and kidnapped by that uncle of yours, and I'm very thankful to you for killing him. She has agreed to stay here and clean up, as well as take care of your aunt and your kittin, Dinah."

Alice's smile widened as she looked back at The White Rabbit. This time in happiness.

"Does this mean we're going home, Mr. Rabbit?" She asked, slipping her knife into her button-up apron pocket.

He nodded, hopping toward the door. She followed after him.

"Yes, we are," He said pulling out his watch. "And not too- OH! GOODNESS GRATIOUS, WE'RE LATE, WE'RE LATE! Alice, come on, if you lose me you know where to go!"

She ran after The White Rabbit, smiling happily the entire way, even as she lost him in the darkness; it had become night, somehow. But she did in fact remember.

'Through the maze and passed the gazebo to the exit, behind the old Knot Tree tree... and down the rabbit hole from there.' She thought. She looked to her left and saw the Cheshire Cat floating along beside her as she ran.

"Hello Cheshire!" She said, ducking through the maze as she remembered the turns. "Thank you for helping me here!"

"Oh, dear Alice," He drawled madly. Looking at him from a distance, one would say he was high. But his mouth was really just sewed that way, by The Dutchess. "It was my pleasure, I assure you. I'd been around a while, waiting for the White Queen's magic to effect that white room of yours and make you immune to the sedatives."

The Knot Tree tree came into view and they slowed down; Alice knew from experiance that falling could take a lot out of her, and she didn't want to find out what it felt like to fall when exhausted. The cat continued where he'd left off.

"That poodle had been getting on my nerves, and when Dinah told me you'd gone completely mad because of the institution I knew exactly what to do to get you back here. Killing all of the other dogs and spoiled, fat cats in the neighborhood was a definate bonus."

Alice nelt next to the hole and peered down into it. She didn't look up as she spoke again to the Cheshire Cat, as she knew he would no longer be there. And he wasn't.

"Shall we go home, Cheshire?"

She felt a hard push from behind and laughed as she fell.

"Yes, Alice, we shall."

The last thing she saw from the Normal World was a police man sticking his hand in in an attempt to catch her. Her eyes and grin were wide again as his head and arm followed her down in, and Cheshire's paw disappeared.

'I'm home!' She thought as she slowed in the air and was surrounded by various nic-nacs and portrates, slowly being turned right-side up. 'Home...!' 


End file.
